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Lost Ark is receiving a major update in October 2024, and ahead of that, we spoke to Roxanne Sabo, Community Lead for the action RPG/MMO from Amazon Games. It’s a huge update, bringing some exciting changes to the game, like the Ark Passive system. Some of the things that’ve led to frustration from players are how complex the game can be and how some content can wind up being left behind as time goes on.
To counteract that, the Lost Ark developers will release the Tier 4 system, which includes this new Ark Passive system and more. It will let players have a greater amount of freedom in how they upgrade and improve their characters. It’s a very exciting time for players and is one of the many reasons players should give the game a try, or return to the MMO in 2024.
Lost Ark’s Roxanne Sabo discusses major changes in the October update
Ahead of the October update, we had a chance to speak to Lost Ark's Community Lead, Roxanne Sabo about a wide variety of topics. Here's what we discovered about the major Tier 4 update:
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Q. One of the things that is coming this year to Lost Ark is Ark Passive. What led to the creation of this system? Was it something you felt was necessary, or important for the growth of the game?
Roxanne Sabo: That’s a great question! If you look back, it’s been over two years since Lost Ark was first introduced to Western players, and in that time a vast amount of content was added to the game. And along with all of that new content came new progression systems. Over time, the progression systems became increasingly complex and difficult to learn, especially for new players. Additionally, a lot of content in the game became outdated and was no longer used by the majority of players.
So, Amazon Games and Smilegate RPG teams got together and decided that it was time for a refresh. The result was the new Tier 4 system, in which Ark Passive is at the core. With this new system, various progression systems will change more intuitively and players will be able to experiment more and try different battle settings in a less stressful environment.
Q. How flexible is the Ark Passive system going to be? Will it allow players to grow in a variety of ways that suit/fit their way of playing the game?
Roxanne Sabo: Yes, the core design behind Ark Passive is to add flexibility and diversity to how players can adjust their battle settings. In Tier 3, in order to change their activated engravings, players had to change all their accessories, ability stones, and also read new engraving books. Because of this, it wasn’t easy for players to make changes to their combat settings, and therefore experimentation wasn’t that appealing.
In Tier 4, these settings are absorbed into Ark Passive, making it easier to change to other settings, which will increase players' degree of freedom and hopefully encourage them to try different approaches.
Q. The Ark Passive system is a pretty major change to how players grow more powerful in Lost Ark. How accessible will this system be? Will it require a great deal of grinding to invest in? Can you go into greater detail as to how players will use this system?
Roxanne Sabo: "Ark Passive" is a new system that improves character abilities. The character's abilities, which were previously strengthened through gear sets, accessories, and class engravings, are now converted into Ark Passive points and will be used to grant various effects.
Ark Passive will be operated in three types. The "Evolution" type uses given points based on gear and activates combat effects that can be commonly used by all classes. The "Enlightenment" type uses points that are given based on accessories. This type will replace the existing class engravings. Points are provided depending on the quality of accessories, and additional points can be earned by polishing accessories.
The last type, "Leap," allows you to gain additional effects related to the Hyper Awakening skill and Hyper Awakening Techniques. "Leap" points can only be used when Ark Passive is turned on, but any character with gear level 1640 or above can acquire the Hyper Awakening skills and Hyper Awakening Techniques through quests. So, it is possible to use those even without the "Leap" Points, but players can gain additional effects by opening the Ark Passive.
Q. There’s also the Engraving system in Lost Ark, which I think is a pretty interesting way to improve overall combat power. For those new or returning to the game, can you explain how this system will impact their combat builds?
It will be interesting to see how these changes improve combat going forward in Lost Ark (Image via Amazon Games)
Roxanne Sabo: Engravings are changing in Tier 4 in significant ways. In Tier 3, accessories had Combat Stats such as critical/swiftness/specialization and engravings, but Tier 4 accessories do not have these.
Instead, you can grant special options through accessory polishing, and Ark Passive Enlightenment points are provided depending on the polishing stage. You can use enlightenment points to obtain effects that correspond to existing job engravings, and new skills can be opened when a certain number of points are used.
The engraving system has been changed from having players decide which engraving to use by equipping accessories, to selecting the desired engraving based on the engraving book you have read.
Therefore, the inconvenience of having to change all accessories to change the engraving is now gone. Additionally, in the past there players had to read 20 of the same engraving books in order to see a change, but now the engraving is strengthened slightly every time you read 5 engraving books.
Q. Were there any Engravings that were found to be, perhaps a bit too powerful in Lost Ark and had to be tuned down?
Roxanne Sabo: Some Engravings were added to the game a long time ago, and weren’t being used much in the game. We have changed some of these engraving so players can add those to their choices. One example is ‘MP Efficiency Increase’. Before, this engraving only raised your damage dealt when MP was under 50%, but now it grants up to 15% of damage no matter how much MP is left.
Also the Penalty of using ‘Precise Dagger’ has been halved, and ‘Stable Status’ will be applied when you have more than 65% of your HP, instead on 80%. These changes give players various options to choose on which engraving they want to use.
Q. Engravings will be leveled up through Engraving Recipes and Ability Stone nodes will enhance the effect of the Engraving and Relic Engraving books, but how will players come across these Recipes? Is it random in Lost Ark?
Roxanne Sabo: Legendary Engravings can be found from various T4 Content as Kurzan Front, T4 Guardians, T4 raids and also from the Field Boss of North Kurzan.
Q. How will these new systems affect long-term, hardcore Lost Ark players? Will they see any kind of reduction in power until they take the time to use these new/updated systems?
Roxanne Sabo: In the early stages of T4 contents, shifting to Ark Passive may cause power reduction as you won’t have enough points to get all of the effects you might desire from the Ark Passive system. But there’s no need to worry. Players can decide to keep using their T3 settings until they want and shift to new systems when they feel comfortable.
Q. Do you have any advice for new players who aren’t sure of what to do once they have access to these new systems in Lost Ark?
Roxanne Sabo: Once you finish the Main Story Quests of North Kurzan and reach gear level 1620, you can go to Kenuart Fortress to get your new T4 relic gear. Transferring with this gear, you can get evolution points and will become gear level 1640.
This is the base level for T4 content as Kurzan Front, new Guardian Raids, new tier of Chaos gate and Field Boss. From this kind of content, you can get T4 accessories, relic engravings, and also honing materials that will let you raise your gear level further. You can even acquire the Hyper Awakening skills and Hyper Awakening Techniques through quests.
Once you reach gear level 1660, you can enter the new Kazeros Raid, "Aegir" which releases on October 23rd. From this raid, you can obtain materials which are needed for transferring your gear to Ancient T4 gear which will grant you more evolution points.
When you get plenty of points, you can turn on Ark Passive, which will give you so many new effects to take advantage of and help build your character in exciting new ways!
Q. Are there any other major updates coming to Lost Ark later this year that you think players will be especially excited for?
Roxanne Sabo: We’ll be adding New Pet Abilities to the game in November. All pets will have these abilities randomly granted when finishing their training, and will assist you in areas of the game such as your Stronghold, Farm, Dispatches, Crafting and even in battles!
We’ll also be rolling out the next installment of the roadmap later this year, so be sure to stay tuned in to all of the Lost Ark news channels to learn about what’s coming next!
Lost Ark has a great deal of content coming as the year rolls on; this is hardly the final stop. The popular Action RPG/MMO has plenty of content updates coming down the pipe, beyond the October updates. The game is available now on PC via Steam.
